In recent years, legislation has been enacted making stringent standards for flame retardancy for certain applications of polyurethane foam. By way of illustration, the so-called "British Standard" (British Standard BS-5852, Part II, Source V, adopted November 1988) sets rigorous standards for furniture foam. In order to pass this flame retardancy test regimen, the urethanes industry has developed combustion-modified foam formulations utilizing specialized polyols, such as so-called high resilient ("HR") polyols, and/or polymer/polyols which are typically utilized in conjunction with melamine as a flame retardant, alone or in conjunction with supplemental flame retardants, in order to provide the required level of flame retardancy to the foam. Unfortunately, these specialized polyols and polymer/polyols are expensive and/or difficult to produce.
New approaches for passing the British Standard test using cheaper, more easily produced polyurethane precursors than those utilized in the past would be highly desired by the polyurethane manufacturing community.